Mimi's story

We could not have been more excited to learn we were expecting Mimi. As with Scott, her conception was very much planned.... basal body temp charts, Clomid, and prayer, oh, my!
And as with Scott, it took 3 months of Clomid for it to work. For reasons now long forgotten to me, my husband was not around (or available by phone) when I took the pregnancy test. It was a Friday, and I had a Sweet Adeline retreat that week-end. It seemed wrong, as my husband was walking in the door and I was walking out, to say, "oh, by the way, we're expecting" so I decided to wait to tell him. But then the question is, when is the RIGHT time? It was near Valentines Day, so I waited until then to tell him. It felt very strange to know something that big without sharing it with him! I was relieved to finally let the cat out of the bag.
As with Scott's pregnancy, we wait to tell the family until the end of the first trimester. That 13th week fell right around my husband's birthday, and the family got together to celebrate, and I had made Scott a little T-shirt that said, "I'm going to be a big brother" for him to wear in the presence of the Grandparents, so that's how we "announced" it to the family.
I had a great pregnancy, with some aversions to raw meat, but nothing too bad. I had dropped a TON of weight before getting pregnant ( I was a size 8...can you believe that?) and I don't carry big anyway, so I didn't wear maternity clothes until my 7th month.
We did make an exciting trip during this pregnancy...we went to England and Wales on a church exchange program. We stayed with a family who had come over the year before and had a son Scott's age. We hiked and toured and I even went trapezing off the side of a Hobie cat wearing a wet suit-all while 6 months pregnant. It was great fun.
As for emotions in pregnancy, I had all the usual reticence moms have about how having a second child will affect the first one. We loved him SO MUCH, and couldn't imagine how a) we could love another child the same way and b) how he would ever recover from the upheaval we were about to cause in his life by adding a sibling. Of course, like everyone else, we discovered your love multiplies as your children do, and yes, your first child will never be the same after siblings, but hopefully that's for the better, although in our case that's debatable :-).
My due date was the 11th of October. Since Scott had been induced early, we had no idea what to expect in terms of whether I'd be early/late/or on time. Well, the 11th came and went, and no baby. On the18th (my sister's birthday) I had an appointment, but still no baby. That following Monday would be 2 weeks...the point at which they induce no matter what. We decided that, because of my husband working for himself and the hospital being 45 minutes away, we'd schedule an induction for that Thursday the 21st, so that I'd be home for the week-end and he'd be there to help without having to worry about missing client service calls (when you're self-employed, you don't get paid if you don't work). But Mimi had different plans :-).
Tuesday morning I had taken Scott to the park. I was there with friends, and was having totally painless contractions every 5 minutes. I'd had Braxton Hicks throughout, so I just blew them off. When we got home though, I called the midwife (it was probably around 11:45ish) since they had been so regular, and she of course said to come in. I protested that I had just been there the day before, and it was probably nothing. She insisted, but I told her I needed to at least wait for my husband to get home and told her she should just go to lunch and we'd probably get there 1-1:30ish. I can't even remember what we did with Scott, although I am fairly certain that we took him to Mimi's Godmother's house on our way down to the midwife's.
Anyway, as we drove to the midwife's, my contractions spaced out and became irregular, (although they were a bit more painful) and I became utterly convinced going there was ridiculous. But we went anyway. So we get there, and my midwife checked me and said, "Guess how far you are?" I said something along the lines of not wanting to play that game (still convinced this was not the real thing) and she said 6 cm. She told us to head to the hospital. Even the nurse on the way out said she was sure I was NOT in labor because I was laughing and smiling.
I got to the hospital and was 7 cm. They hooked me up to an IV (I have mitral valve prolapse) for my antibiotic, and then the midwife broke my water. Mimi was born 17 minutes later. No, that's not a joke. Glad I totally listened to the midwife and ignored my own inclinations or she would have been born by the side of the road.
We knew Mimi was a girl because Scott even then was having language/learning problems and we thought knowing the gender and calling her a "she" would be more concrete for him than an "it". When we chose Scott's name, we had chosen a girl's name also. We had decided early on that we wanted to use that name for this little girl, so Mimi she was. She is named for my great-grandmother, whose middle name was Mimi's first name. And we just liked Lauren with that.
Mimi has always had a special spirit about her. God has big plans for her. She is amazingly easy...easy as a daughter, easy as a friend, and easy for other people to have around and enjoy. She does however talk incessantly :-). Her physical resemblance to me is negligible. I seem to be the incubator more than the genetically strong one ;-). She gets her petite build from her great and great-great grandmothers. She gets her curly hair from a rogue curly hair gene. Four pregnancies later I am enjoying that gene more, but my sister and my cousin and my uncle were the ones most blessed that way.
Mimi's spirit though, that's where we are more alike. She's an amazing arguer. It was always my "gift" too. Hopefully she'll learn when to make a point and when to let it go WAY earlier than I have. She would make a great lawyer someday, but I hope instead she puts her oratory skills to good use as a mom, I know I use them everyday :-).
Happy Birthday Mimi!